🦩 The desk chair that lets you "go flamingo"

Good Morning,

In most surveys about remote work benefits, “not commuting” ranks as the #1 or #2 perk. Just how bad does something have to be for its absence to be celebrated?

Well, there’s data for that. This week we’ve highlighted three studies that point to the negative effects of commuting (e.g. worse physical and emotional health).

And if you’re someone who routinely commutes against your will, you at least have the upcoming holiday season to look forward to: December is historically the month with the lowest in-office attendance rates.

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Need to Know

🤦🏻‍♂️ Blackstone CEO claims remote workers don’t work as hard as in-office employees.
Leave it to the leader of the largest commercial real estate landlord in the world to use a subjective claim (“they didn’t work as hard”) instead of facts or data to attempt to dispel remote work.

After years of seeing real estate leaders and investors bash remote work without data to back it up, it is incredibly gratifying that the press has finally caught on. While in some cases the media have mentioned real estate titles alongside quotes that knock WFH, this seems to be the first time that the self-interest has been shown in headlines across media channels like Fortune, Morning Brew, and The Guardian. It’s a big step forward in showcasing the true narrative that remote work provides far more positives than negatives, no matter what property owners say. (The Guardian)

🇺🇸 The Biden Administration offers $45B to convert offices to residential housing.
On Friday, the White House announced an initiative to allocate $45 billion in financing to convert commercial office space to affordable housing.

The program frees up $35 billion in low-cost loans from the Transportation Department for housing developments that are near transit hubs, while also giving developers access to $10 billion in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s community-development block-grant program. (WhiteHouse.gov)

🚗 Long commutes have always been bad for workers, according to data.

• In this European study from 2008, the abstract succinctly states: “People with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being.” (Scandinavian Journal of Economics)

• A Gallup poll published in 2010 found “American workers with lengthy commutes are more likely to report a range of adverse physical and emotional conditions, leading to lower overall scores on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.”
  At the time, 1/5 of workers commuted for at least one hour every day. Workers with long commutes were substantially more likely to have neck or back pain than those with commutes of 10 minutes or less.
  This is seen on the chart below, which also shows that longer commutes were associated with higher rates of obesity and high cholesterol. (Gallup)

• A global study published in 2022 by the National Library of Medicine found the following: “the longer the commute time workers use, the lower satisfaction with work and life they have; the long commute also causes health damage, affecting physical health and causing inactivity.”

  Additional review found that mental health was also negatively impacted by longer commutes.

  Further, this study dove into solutions in cities, and concluded that “better public transportation infrastructure can decrease commuting time, especially the construction of subways,” therefore improving the physical and mental health of a city’s working population. (National Library of Medicine)

More data for your arsenal next time your company proposes a return to office.

Special thanks to Adam Singer for citing two of these studies in a 2021 blog post and for sharing the post on Twitter last week 🤝

💸 Hybrid workers spend $51/day when working from the office.
Owl Labs surveyed hybrid workers in June 2023 for their State of Hybrid Work report, which also found that shifting to fully-remote was valued the same to hybrid workers as shifting to a 4-day workweek. (Owl Labs)

📦 Amazon managers can fire employees who aren’t in the office 3 days a week.
Wake up, new management guidelines just dropped! Unfortunately they aren’t ideal for those who want to resist the office mandate - which includes at least 28,000 Amazon employees in the internal “Remote Advocacy” Slack channel. The guidelines emphasize that 3+ days in the office is a requirement, and managers have authority to counter noncompliance with termination. (Fortune)

🧠 Think Tank highlights the biggest productivity killers, and remote work isn’t the cause; it’s part of the solution.
The Economist Impact found that distractions will happen in any location, in different forms. At home, workers cite household chores as a primary culprit, but at the office, face-to-face interactions prove to be distracting and unexpected. But the true productivity killers appear to be chat and email notifications, and unimportant meetings. Further, the study notes that allowing employees to choose their work location would improve overall outcomes for focus, work quality, and well-being. (Economist Impact)

🙅 Managers make these mistakes when measuring remote productivity.
Okay, we’ve talked about productivity killers - now let’s check out some mistakes that managers make when measuring remote worker productivity, compiled by the team behind the Flex Index earlier this month:

• Measuring vanity metrics, or “productivity theater,” instead of outcomes

  • Checking off a to-do list is fine, but make sure those to-do’s aren’t meaningless

• Assuming efficiency is the same thing as effectiveness

  • For example, just because a person can type fast doesn’t mean their writing is good

• Equating “hustle culture” with strong, committed work ethic

  • Being “always on,” whether it means on calls or always active on Slack, doesn’t at all guarantee positive work output

Ultimately, these all point to managers needing, more than ever, to find objective, measurable results to judge employees on. (Flex Index)

Stuff We Like

• Job Seeking Is Hard: Newsletter by Adam Karpiak

  You might recognize Adam’s name if you’ve ever scrolled through Twitter or LinkedIn. He’s a recruiting industry expert who’s built a following for his candid advice and entertaining content. He runs this newsletter to provide advice, resources, and more for job seekers.

  
  

• Movably Pro: A chair that let’s you “go flamingo”

  This Indiegogo project gives workers a chance to stand or sit in seven different supported positions, including “flamingo,” where a person stands with one foot up (see below). The goal is dynamic movement without interrupting a work session. The chair is still in development, but backers can reserve one of their own on Indiegogo for the next 28 days.
  
  

• EasyPlant: Plants you water just once a month

  If you need some green in your home office, I highly recommend these. Instead of worrying about over- or under-watering, you just put water into the pot once every month, and the pot’s technology ensures the plant is watered sufficiently throughout the month.
  
  

Part of me hates to rip into Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone. He’s had an incredibly impressive career and I liked his book. But he’s also a billionaire and always going to look out for his shareholders’ interests, so I’m not overly sympathetic.

The other leaders (clowns*) across the commercial real estate industry are no different. Their chips are down, their investors are scrambling, and they’re desperate to bring people back into the office even if it’s not the best strategic move for individuals or the companies themselves.

Fingers crossed that when quotes like this surface in the future, the media calls out the BS again before I can 😊

Cheers,
Grant

*Denotes a sponsored or affiliate link. Any paid sponsorships, products, or services are thoroughly vetted by us before we make recommendations to readers.